News

In July, the Big Beautiful Bill became law and, as you’ll see, the effects are anything but beautiful. AFSCME has analyzed the key impacts on retirees and identified the following areas of concern:

• Medicare Cuts — Increases prescription drug costs by exempting more drugs from Medicare drug price negotiation and potentially triggers $500 billion in Medicare cuts.
• Catastrophic Health Care Cuts — Causes 15 million people to lose coverage due to cuts in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage and will result in cuts in Medicaid coverage, increases in private plan costs and reduced access to care.
• Big Cuts in Food Assistance — Makes significant cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits that could affect seniors directly and indirectly.
• Benefit Cuts for Early Retirees — Results in some pre-65 retirees losing Medicaid and SNAP benefits and causes big increases in their ACA marketplace health premiums.
• Temporary Tax Cuts for Some Retirees — Gives a temporary, four-year tax deduction for some people 65 and older with incomes below certain levels.
• Faster Social Security Trust Fund Depletion — Accelerates the date at which the Social Security Trust Fund is exhausted by six months.
• Back-door Social Security Privatization — Creates private individual accounts that could be used to privatize Social Security in the future.

For more details, refer to the AFSCME's issue fact sheet for retirees.